french wine and monster road rap

took tess to see bruce.



i was an hour late because i took a shower and i washed my car. i drove fast and caught the eye of a traffic cop. nothing happened but i got frightened and i slowed down.

bruce was a bit shy of tess at first but as we talked about writing and art, he really opened up. tess had seen monster road and was excited to meet bruce.

talked openly about the plan for bruce. the new game, i told him, is to go strait for the audience and bypass the sutdios. if you build the show, the producers will follow.

its crazy. audience first, product second. so read this blog.

we flesh out pirate mike and tess plays guitar. at some point, bruce tells me a story about how brian once dragged him out to see a dan bern show.

"everything was in the high register," he said. "i kept waiting for it to get better but it never did."

he then gave us a tour of the garage. clay figurines from the frank zappa animation days. soon, i will post pictures. i have access to a canon 5d slr that i don't know how to use. also, i have access to a cheap canon high def camera. it probably sells for $800 but i'm a snob when it comes to cameras.

watch this vlog!

before we left, bruce reminded me of carrie robinsons birthday party. i offered to take him sunday night and he laughed.

"oh good! this way i can get drunk."

you would have to know bruce bickford to know how funny this is.

he then told us how he loves to drink fine french wine and drop some mean blues raps. he's done it a couple times with some ex-zappa musicians. project object, he said.

this is obscure. do i get 1000 hipster points for this level of obscurity?

bruce tells me another story about dabbling in caffeine. he drank 5 cups of coffee one afternoon and stayed up all night thinking about the joker story. he said he worked out a bunch of good stuff but he couldn't sleep and he got all these nasty physical side effects.

i love you, bruce. i freaking love you.

meeting producers. meeting girls.

showed up late. the gate was open and bruce was waiting by the door. must have heard my car.

i woke up with a splitting headache, he tells me as i come in.

greg mcclellan sent me the word files for 'those days' and 'space cowboy' and i sent him a reply e-mail. i don't know who is involved here at bruce's house and i want to learn more before i start stirring up the pot.

bruce says there are some publishers he wants to contact. groth at fantagraphics. tawd dorenfeld at last gasp in san fransisco.

tawd introduced bruce to some guy at disney. martin olsen. he invited bruce to submit a proposal for a children's television show. this was back in september. the story idea was pirate mike.

also, dark horse publishing is interested in something. mike richardson is familiar with his work. he says they might be able to help him with the joker story.

he called dark horse and told them he wants to break into comics. he knows who i am. i used to do work for frank zappa in the 70s. they said mike will be back monday.

we start working on pirate mike. several hours later, we got tired. i check the stranger for that 'i saw you' my ex-girlfriend told me about.

it is the second one about me this winter. same girl, i suspect. she probably got drunk with her friends and couldn't stop talking about me and her friends probably encouraged it. they might have written it themselves.

bruce asks about the pictures of girls in the classifieds and then says the world is a dangerous place, that so many people in new york has venereal disease.

i ask him if he wants to keep working and he says he has a brian block.

he recalls a story from 4th grade. he had a mean teacher who humiliated him in front of the class. the teacher had a reputation for being cruel.

he often said 'you ought to be beaten until the oil boils out of you.'

luckily, the administration had stopped him from literally beating students but he had always been a verbally abusive monster.

after sitting next to me for a long time, bruce complains about the circulation in his legs and he moves from the wicker chair to the concrete kitchen floor.

the cabinets and things are all painted army green and the house somewhat resembles a forest ranger outpost, overlooking kent and renton and tuckwilla.

rugs cover the floor. they collect all the dirt. they are older than he is, he says. grandma made this one and that one was in the old house. he has memories of it as a kid. rug memories.

before i leave he has me pull up the stranger lovelab again. he tells me he looked up brooke shields pictures and speculates how much time she spends on her hair and looking good. and having her picture taken.

one of them didn't look so flattering, he said. she must have had a bad day. i think she was pregnant.

he clicks on a picture of a teenage girl with black hair and blue eyes and matching kjeffiyeh. everything was urban outfitters. he laughs a bit as he gases on.

she wants to meet boys for dancing? no dating. and she wants to meet the president. well, good luck! everyone wants to meet obama.

any sites like this for women interested in old animators? he asks me. sorry bruce, i am not sure if there is a big market out there.

first video post

i called bruce but he was not yet out of bed. how foolish of me! i am getting a bit excited and i should not get ahead of myself like this.

breakfast at glow's. this ist he place where you eat breakfast with your lovers, old or new. today i'm eating alone so it's weird. they bring me a menu but i don't touch it. i have decided before i parked the car.

i'm reading man in the high castle because i havn't finnished it yet.

what is the big plan for bruce? am i ready for this kind of responsability? i am only 26 and yet i am already 26. too young to feel this old.

this is important. i've felt this before in madness.

we must pull an audience, i told him. we must gain trust. you are no longer the man who worked with zappa. you are alive and you are continuing to do things. today.

seriously.

got off the phone with brian. he can be a handfull. every conversation seems to turn to nightmare before christmas and dinosaur and the man who took his wife away. certainly, it is a sensative subject but i want to figure out what is happening today and for tomorrow. i don't care how you introduce peter jackson to the joys of computing.

bruce comes out to open the gate.

made some phone calls regarding bruce's youtube account. who set it up? who knows the password? good to know there is someone helping. good to know its not just brian because he is crazy.

set up uplandos. mispelled it. uploandos. bruce told me he wanted to get a haircut before he did his first video blog. i expected to do a little quick capture thing and he wanted to pull out the camera and do something more in depth.

he has a little canon vixia hv30. i think he got it when his dad passed away.

bruce is getting into it a bit. i think this could be fun.

he comes over as i'm editing and i hate to tell him no but i need to get the first video up.